In Youth and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change, Stephanie Schwartz goes beyond these highly publicized cases and examines the roles of the broader youth population in post-conflict scenarios, taking on the complex task of distinguishing between the legal and societal labels of "child," "youth," and "adult."

This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.

Young People and Everyday Peace is grounded in the stories of young people who live in Los Altos de Cazucá, an informal peri-urban community in Soacha, to the south of Colombia’s capital Bogotá. The occupants of this community have fled the armed conflict and exist in a state of marginalisation and social exclusion amongst ongoing violences conducted by armed gangs and government forces. Young people negotiate these complexities and offer pointed critiques of national politics as well as grounded aspirations for the future. Colombia’s protracted conflict and its effects on the population raise many questions about how we think about peacebuilding in and with communities of conflict-affected people. Building on contemporary debates in International Relations about post-liberal, everyday peace, Helen Berents draws on feminist International Relations and embodiment theory to pay meaningful attention to those on the margins. She conceptualises a notion of embodied-everyday-peace-amidst-violence to recognise the presence and voice of young people as stakeholders in everyday efforts to respond to violence and insecurity. In doing so, Berents argues for and engages a more complex understanding of the everyday, stemming from the embodied experiences of those centrally present in conflicts. Taking young people’s lives and narratives seriously recognises the difficulties of protracted conflict, but finds potential to build a notion of an embodied everyday amidst violence, where a complex and fraught peace can be found. Young People and Everyday Peace will be of interest to scholars of Latin American Studies, International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies.

This book highlights the important role youth can play in processes of peacebuilding by examining music as a tool for engaging youth in such activities. As Lesley J. Pruitt discusses throughout the book, music—as expression, as creation, as inspiration—can provide many unique insights into transforming conflicts, altering our understandings, and achieving change. She offers detailed empirical work on two youth peacebuilding programs in Australia and Northern Ireland, countries that appear overtly peaceful, but where youth still face structural violence and related direct violence at the community level. She also pays careful attention to the ways in which gender norms might influence young people's participation in music-based peacebuilding activities. Ultimately, the book defines a new research area linking youth cultures and music with peacebuilding practice and policy.

This open access book brings together discourse on children and peace from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, covering issues pertinent to children and peace and approaches to making their world safer, fairer and more sustainable. The book is divided into nine sections that examine traditional themes (social construction and deconstruction of diversity, intergenerational transitions and memories of war, and multiculturalism), as well as contemporary issues such as Europe’s “migration crisis”, radicalization and violent extremism, and violence in families, schools and communities. Chapters contextualize each issue within specific social ecological frameworks in order to reflect on the multiplicity of influences that affect different outcomes and to discuss how the findings can be applied in different contexts. The volume also provides solutions and hope through its focus on youth empowerment and peacebuilding programs for children and families. This forward-thinking volume offers a multitude of views, approaches, and strategies for research and activism drawn from peace psychology scholars and United Nations researchers and practitioners. This book's multi-layered emphasis on context, structural determinants of peace and conflict, and use of research for action towards social cohesion for children and youth has not been brought together in other peace psychology literature to the same extent. Children and Peace: From Research to Action will be a useful resource for peace psychology academics and students, as well as social and developmental psychology academics and students, peace and development practitioners and activists, policy makers who need to make decisions about the matters covered in the book, child rights advocates and members of multilateral organizations such as the UN.

This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.

"In the aftermath of violent conflict, no society can afford to rebuild its future without the participation of its young generation and consideration for their interests and needs. Yet, trapped in a state of protracted victimhood, children and youth - and their needs and potential - risk being overlooked in the planning and implementation of post-conflict peacebuilding. They are frequently mere bystanders to peacebuilding efforts, disempowered to change their fortunes in the midst of societies scarred by death, poverty and destruction. Their voices will not be heard unless they can escape the chains of victimhood and their active agency in post-war recovers effort is recognized. The contributors to this volume explore the lack of child- and youth- specific peacebuilding practices by local, national and international players; and young peoples' struggle to escape the continuing victimhood or the pathways of survival criminality and instead secure more opportunities to be agents of sustainable peace. By drawing on experiences from post-conflict environments in different parts of the world, a diverse group of researchers and scholar-practitioners working in academia, non-governmental and international organisations examine the proactive roles of girls and boys in promoting security for themselves and their families ; their disproportionate suffering and their specific vulnerabilities during and after the war; international legal frameworks created to protect and empower children and youth in post-conflict environments; examples of initiatives to help young people escape the traps of victimhood and voicelessness and actively engage in rebuilding their communities and nations; and international and national efforts to provide for the security of children and young people in post-conflict environments. Children and youth are essential catalysts for the successful rebuilding of war-torn societies. Many will reach adulthood as new social, economic and political orders are being consolidated, as first elections are held and as international assistance and early rebuilding efforts are handed over into local hands. As the young post-war generation will become the next leaders, parents and teachers, ensuring children and youth's active role in post-conflict peacebuilding today could be among the most effective means of building a sustainable peace tomorrow."--Publisher's description.

This edited book offers a collection of highly nuanced accounts of children and childhoods in peace and conflict across political time and space. Organized according to three broad themes (ontologies, pedagogies, and contingencies), each chapter explores the complexities of a particular case study, providing new insights into the ways children’s lives figure as terrains of engagement, contestation, ambivalence, resistance, and reproduction of militarisms. The first three chapters challenge dominant ontologies that prefigure childhood in particular ways. These include who counts as a child worthy of protection, questions of voice and participation, and the diminution of agency. The chapters in the second section bring to view everyday pedagogies whereby myriad knowledges, performances, practices, and competencies may function to militarize children’s lives, including in but not limited to advanced (post)industrial societies of the global North. The third and final section includes investigations that foreground questions of responsibility to children. Here, contributors assess, among other things, resilience-building, the exigencies of protection, and the ethics of military recruitment practices targeting children.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

Securitizing Youth offers new insights on young people’s engagement in a wide range of contexts related to the peace and security field. It presents empirical findings on the challenges and opportunities faced by young women and men in their efforts to build more peaceful, inclusive, and environmentally secure societies. The chapters included in this edited volume examine the diversity and complexity of young people’s engagement for peace and security in different countries across the globe and in different types and phases of conflict and violence, including both conflict-affected and relatively peaceful societies. Chapter contributors, young peacebuilders, and seasoned scholars and practitioners alike propose ways to support youth’s agency and facilitate their meaningful participation in decision-making. The chapters are organized around five broad thematic issues that correspond to the 5 Pillars of Action identified by UN Security Council Resolution 2250. Lessons learned are intended to inform the global youth, peace, and security agenda so that it better responds to on-the-ground realities, hence promoting more sustainable and inclusive approaches to long-lasting peace.